Someone on Facebook kindly pointed out that someone appears to be selling a used (!) copy of Cast in Silence on Amazon.com.

Cast in Silence doesn't exist as a new book yet. It doesn't exist as an ARC yet. It barely exists as a finished manuscript, because I am still working my way through the AAs mentioned a couple of days ago.

I'm not entirely sure what he -- or to be fair, she or they -- hope to gain from this, and mine is not the only "used" book offered for sale at this price. The other one thirty seconds of perusal turned up is Maria Snyder's also as yet unpublished book. I cannot imagine that anyone--besides a publisher--would pay 1,000.00 for a book of mine, let alone one that doesn't even exist.

So. Just in case you're curious: He isn't selling an ARC. Because it doesn't exist. He isn't, as far as I can tell, selling anything genuine. If anyone asks you about this, please pass it on, or point them here.

Actually just a straight report from her doesn't do much good because they don't have a lot of ways to verify her as the author. Her publisher/vendor might be a better option. Reporting the seller is a great idea though. Since it is obvious from the main page that the book isn't out yet and he HAS to be selling an illegal copy. (I worked for Amazon for a while).

Michelle, I just had to write to the SAME GUY -- charging that same absurd $1,000 -- for one of our books that won't be published until September. He did take it down; said I was "right" and he didn't have that book at all. It was "an error."

No chance whatsoever. And none of the ARC, either; the AAs are the step -before- the page proofs that their internal proofreaders read. Those pages are the ones that will be used for galleys; the ones I'm working on now lead directly into those ones.

Maybe the guy has a time machine that he is using to bring such items back from the future. More likely, this sounds like wire fraud and would be a federal offense if he is in the US. I hope someone gets him.

However, I am looking forward to reading a legitimate copy of the book when it is available.

There is no FRAUD going on here - there was a database error during a database merge that caused a few ISBN's in my multi-million book inventory to get corrupted. When that file was loaded into an Amazon server, it listed some books for sale that I do not have. A built-in safety measure increased the price of these items (items for which my inventory management system cannot verify the existence of in any of our warehouses). The prices were raised up high enough to prevent anyone from ever considering buying the items, then when a live person (not an automated inventory management system) verifies the error in the inventory, that suspect item will be removed from our master database.

There has been many accusations about these books that were accidentally offered for sale, some pretty wild accusations I might add, and I am disturbed that no one ever thought that TSCBOOKS (me) may have simply made a mistake.

I am not a cheat or a con artist, as this post has stated, I am an honest business man trying to run a large book company. If I was attempting to defraud anyone by selling them books that I do not have, would it not make more sense for me to offer these books for sale at a price that someone might actually pay? No one would pay $1000 for one of these books, especially one that obviously is not available for sale yet. This is the very reason why the price is set so high when a potential system error is detected -So No One Will Buy That Item.

You should reconsider how you look at the world - the most obvious reason for all of this commotion is "A Mistake". Most of the posts here are taking the assumption that bad intention were the reason for these books being offered for sale. Not a single person offered the idea that someone or something at TSCBOOKS "might have made a mistake". Why do you think it had to be something bad that TSCBOOKS did? Is that more exciting to you? I apologize if this was a simply, boring, unintentional computer error, but that is exactly what happened.

Please forgive me for having a computer error. Please note that our database safety systems instantly prevented anyone from buying these books (at least anyone that would not spend $1000 for a book that is probably worth less than $5O). Not a single person has attempted to buy any of the books in question yet, and I am fairly sure that no one will ever try to do so. If anyone would attempt to buy an item that I determine I dont really have, their order would be cancelled immideatly, their payment would immideatly be refunded and the sale canceled since the item is unavailable.

Please let me know if there is any immediate action anyone would request I take in regards to any of these books in question - please post a response on this web site.